1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle body side portion where a pair of right and left roof side rails are disposed along a vehicle anteroposterior direction on both sides of a roof reinforcement that extends along a vehicle width direction of a roof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a vehicle body, sometimes a roof reinforcement is disposed along the vehicle width direction of a roof as a support member of the upper portion of a center pillar in order to reduce the deformation amount of the center pillar during a side collision. However, ordinarily the vehicle width direction center portion of the roof is high and both vehicle width direction end portions of the roof are low, so when the center pillar receives a load during a side collision, a bending moment in a direction where the roof reinforcement becomes convex towards the vehicle upper side at its vehicle width direction center portion occurs in the roof reinforcement.
For this reason, sometimes coupled portion reinforcements are disposed in the joint portions between the roof reinforcement and the roof side rails in order to prevent deformation of the roof reinforcement and coupling groove portions or the like between the roof and the upper portions of the side outer panels which are load transmission paths (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 10-152070). In this structure, it is necessary to additionally dispose the coupled portion reinforcements which cause a mass increase.